While Ankor continues fighting back the Viisin, the four of us fly toward the former Forvaal as they sprint into the now undefended land of the pact nations. The lesser Viisin leave very little sign of the mercenaries they must have only recently cut through, but the odd limb or discarded weapon is enough that there is no doubt of the slaughter they’ve left behind.

There have to be nearly a hundred of the fresh Viisin rushing along the land. With so many crowding so close together, it’s no surprise whatever army of mercenaries stood in their way didn’t last long. I could kill probably five or six, maybe I could reach ten if I really pushed myself, before I’d have to recover for a while.

With Grímr’s new inscription covered body, I’m sure he can fight some off himself, but my concern lies with the other two. Even without intelligence, these Viisin are just as fast and their touch as deadly as always. I distinctly remember my team struggling against normal Forvaal, before Kalma’s boost. How are Remus and Jav fine to join us?

“Are you sure it’s safe for you two to join?”

Remus laughs. “In a direct battle? Of course not. Jav and I don’t plan to get close.” He reaches a tentacle and unstraps a couple of packs from Grímr’s side. “But Solon wasn’t the only one I asked help from.”

I’m curious as to what he means, but the old dohrni doesn’t elaborate. He chooses to smile my way in infuriating silence.

Fine then, keep it a secret. I throw myself off Grímr’s back, and finish my transformation to a falcon before rocketing ahead. If he wants to tease me like that, I’ll kill the Viisin before he even has the chance to show off.

The less mass in this form helps a lot with mobility. My physical jets require far less energy or resources to achieve the same acceleration. It’s a shame, but I haven’t been able to use a spear in a while. Without the weapon to use, I don’t really need to stay in my default form for any other reason than comfort. It might be useful if I was desperate enough to use my body’s flames to fight the Viisin, like I did when I first pushed them to a white heat, but while it’s possible to kill them with my inner flame alone, there is no point putting my life in such danger.

I soar forward, incinerating the first two I pass and intentionally gaining the attention of the rest. As expected, they simultaneously dash after me. If I hadn’t already accelerated to an immense speed, there’s a no way I could have dodged them all.

I find some amusement in the way they crash into each other before throwing themselves after me. Many claw at their neighbour to give themselves more speed, unknowingly dismembering them. More than half are left recovering as the fewer close in on me. One unfortunate soul dies completely at his brethren’s hands.

If only I could replicate that a hundred more times.

I incinerate two more in an instant, but the strain it puts on my flames is hard to push through. Three more jump directly into balls of white flame, only for the blaze to engulf them and leave nothing left. Much of my inner flame disappears along with them, leaving nothing but an ache as replacement. As much as I wanted to show Remus up, it looks like there’s only so far I can reach.

A metallic grinding screech rings out a moment before Grímr, in his huge glowing alicanto body, tears through the swarming Viisin. The inscriptions on his wings shine brighter as they shear through a dozen mermineae. He grasps a couple of Viisin in his taloned feet and carries them away from the horde before slamming them into the earth, crushing them under his entire weight.

The ones his wings cut through quickly recover, dashing after either of us, while those caught beneath him are gone for good. The crowd splits their attention between the two of us, and bound after us in a way that reminds me far too much of the chthonic my tribe fought so long ago. Their ample numbers, in addition to their mindless blood-thirst, mimic the first creatures I’d truly feared.

Grímr takes to the air long before they can reach him. He clearly doesn’t want to get caught in a melee with the Viisin, and as I watch him gain altitude, I see why; an ever so slight trail of dust falls off his wings. It appears those inscriptions don’t entirely make him immune to the effects of decay.

A Viisin leaps through the air, coming far too close for comfort. I burn it and take some more height. I’ll need to wait around for a minute before I can try to take any more on. Most of the inner flame I can control at once is already gone. Unless I want to try using the flames of my body, I’m forced to ascend and wait until they reignite.

As Remus said, both he and Jav keep their distance. Remus reaches into a pouch and hands something to Jav. Though I’d rather not let him get his way over me, I am curious about what he’s brought.

I don’t have to wait long to find out. Remus wraps a tentacle around Jav only a moment before the small volan spears through the air with terrifying speed. Even if Grímr and I have grown immensely since we all fought as a team, the power Remus can put into his throws is still impressive.

In the blink of an eye, Jav has crossed hundreds of metres, soaring over the heads of the Viisin chasing me. I almost miss the capsule Jav tosses amongst the mermineae before it explodes into an intense flash. The crack of Remus’ whip like limb reaches my ears an instant before the thrumming blast does.

I’m pelted by shrapnel that surprisingly doesn’t melt as it comes in contact with my body. Below, a crater appears in the centre of the swarm of Viisin. The blast completely erasing a few of the mindless creatures from existence, and blowing away those further out.

So the centzon were able to create more of those bombs in the time they crossed the Alps. Remus didn’t have many satchels with him, so I can assume we have about five more of those bombs left at most. I’m surprised the centzon gave even that many away. It’s supposed to be a time-consuming process to create both the oil and shrapnel used in the explosives.

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Jav is already curving back to Remus, ready to pick up another bomb, but the Viisin are no longer ignorant of their presence. With me out of their reach, they unanimously turn towards the old dohrni.

Remus, after throwing Jav a second time, has the wisdom to move away as fast as he can. He’s already a good kilometre, but if he’s not careful, they’ll catch up before he realises. But I trust Remus to have the experience to keep himself safe.

Jav, on the other hand, has to get in real close to toss those devastating bombs. I know with his reaction speed and the velocity he moves, there’s little to worry about, but he’s still the most vulnerable. A single mistake, and it could be all over for him.

Grímr swoops, cutting through the group chasing Remus and leading his own pack into the rest just as Jav flings another bomb. The resultant explosion peppers Grímr with shrapnel, but with his inscriptions hardening the metal of his body, they clatter off like nothing.

Despite the strike being perfect, there are still so many remaining. Only the Viisin vaporised by the initial blast stay down. We’ve whittled down barely a quarter of the numbers they started with.

There’s simply too many to fight in any way that isn’t conservative. Grímr would be overwhelmed if he tried to take out any more than one or two at a time, and the duo have no choice but to keep their distance. Not to mention they are on a counter before they lose their only effective method to deal damage.

My fire is coming back, but far too slowly. Ankor has been fighting that superior Viisin for who knows how long now, so I hardly think there’s any need to clear through these mermineae with any haste. But still, I’d rather my team not put themselves in danger while I’m simply watching from the sidelines.

… okay, fine. I just don’t want to lose out to them after I’ve grown so much. I want to show them up a bit. It’s Remus’ fault for winding me up at the start of the fight.

But I’ll never keep up with their pace as it is. In the time it’s taken me to regain enough flames to burn two Viisin, Grímr has already crushed six, and the other two have probably blown up over a dozen between them. As things are going, I’ll lose in the kill count. I can’t have that.

If I want to compete, I’ll need to try something different. Simply burning them will waste the resources I have, but do I have any other options that will work? Attacking them directly with my body should be a last resort. I highly doubt I’d be able to cook them alive by surrounding them; not only would it take too long for the temperature to rise to a level that might actually hurt them, but they’re likely to jump into my flames before I can react, making the attempt pointless.

I could make my flames physical, to attack without touching them, but I’m still unable to add all that much weight to them. The best offence I’d be able to inflict is raising some rock high into the air and dropping it on their heads, but I don’t even waste time on that idea. The Viisin tear through so much stone with each step that the size of the rock I’d have to lift would be so far out of my capabilities that I’d have a better chance burning Kalma.

But, there is one thing I’ve not tried.

There has never been a need to test the other side of the range, as my inner flames are already immaterial. What could making a non-physical fire more intangible possibly even accomplish? It’s not something I’ve ever really needed to try. Not until now. The decay obviously interacts with my fire. It would be amazing if I could stop that interaction completely without extinguishing my flames.

Hundreds of metres in the sky — high enough that I can dodge any Viisin tempted to fling themselves up at me — I concentrate my inner flame around me. I take a grasp of their state, and ease the fire away from the physical form I use to carry things and thrust myself through the air.

It’s a strange feeling. Surprisingly, not even hard to achieve. My flames don’t change visibly, still swaying with candescence, but there is a distinction that is hard to describe. It’s less… present, and yet entirely still here.

I try consuming the air and find that while I can interact with it, doing so actually takes effort. In the future, I’ll have to be careful never to push my entire body to this state — assuming I could ever push my body that far — it will be difficult to breathe.

Another explosion tears me out of my concentration. Those two should only have a couple of bombs left, so now is probably a good time to test whether this incorporeal flame is enough to combat the Viisin. I have recovered enough inner flame to incinerate three Viisin, which should be plenty to experiment with.

I swoop down, chasing the mermineae that have all but forgotten me in their chase after Remus. The dohrni is quick, and keeps his distance, but the Viisin are gradually catching up. I’m not worried though. Should they get too close, I know Grímr will pick him up. It’s good he has their undivided attention; I can play with a laggard.

A Viisin that only recently had its bottom half cut off by Grímr’s large wings trails behind the rest of the pack of Viisin. I fly in close, swirling my flames close around my chest.

Really, if they hadn’t lost their mind from Kalma’s forced enhancement, this would be a nightmare scenario. If they had even the slightest sentience left, they would split up and surround their targets rather than pointlessly chasing after them. Remus herds them with far too much ease.

The Viisin doesn’t even see me coming. Something I know would have been impossible if it had intelligence. I could never catch a Viisin off-guard before.

I wrap my flames around the creature, and to my relief, it doesn’t hurt. Even through the dust, I can feel the Viisin’s body. I watch as the flesh, bones and organs continue their rapid cycle of decaying and subsequent renewal. It’s like my flames permeate its body without truly interacting with it.

Well, to say there are no effects would be a lie. The Viisin clearly notices the flames shrouding its body, and I can see the heat around the creature rising drastically.

It turns and launches itself at me. From the distance it does so, I have nothing to worry about. I simply burst a jet of physical flames from my side and alter my trajectory… but I don’t move anywhere near as far as I expect and I panic as the Viisin comes within a claw’s breadth of striking me.

Okay, so creating a physical flame becomes multitudes more difficult when controlling ethereal flame. With a deep breath, I calm myself from the close call and vow to myself to be more careful.

My flames are still hot, but they aren’t truly burning the Viisin, so I push them to consume. Like the air, it is a challenge to eat through the physical separation and scorch the creature’s body. It works. Flesh incinerates far slower than normal, but the mermineae still burns up in my grasp, and with hardly any pain on my end. I can feel the decay trying to combat my flames, to reduce them to nothing, but the decay simply has an immensely difficult time reaching through the ethereal barrier.

This new state I can reach has the added benefit of allowing me to reach within the creature’s body before I burn it, so I don’t need to struggle past the wall of dust before I can vaporise it.

The only downside is that while my normal flame could immolate a Viisin in an instant, this method requires a relatively lengthy amount of time to burn them. I have to push past their regeneration and slowly wear down its body from within. But even so, the rate at which I can kill Viisin is far faster than if I have to wait for my inner flame to recover every time.

Also, being able to fight without inflicting pain upon myself will be amazing.

My test subject is no more. Nothing but dust dispersing in the breeze. I can’t help the smirk that sneaks its way over my face as I look over the many Viisin waiting to be incinerated.

Ha, Remus won’t be able to show me up now.